Little Laptops

From nswccWiki

Contents 1 NSW DER and Macs 2 Tips 3 Useful applications for interoperability but not available on the UMPC 4 Connections

NSW DER and Macs

Despite the fact that the platform of choice for DER laptops in NSW Public schools is Windows 7 there is a place for using more powerful Macintosh computers along side these UMPC (Ulta-Mobile PCs). Read on... There are a number of benefits:

• as producers of educational material for delivery to students we need to use equipment that has a feature set beyond the capabilities of the UMPC. Despite what you may believe, anything involving A/V creation and display is going to be torturous.

• for lesson delivery we need to use equipment that has a feature set beyond the capabilities of the DER UMPC. A typical case is the need for a dual independent display capability for video streaming with a resolution greater than 800 px x 600 px and hundreds or thousands of colours.

• Access to alternative and in some cases very useful software such as iMovie, Keynote, Pages, Garageband that are not available on the DER UMPC platform, but nevertheless can easily interoperate with it- in terms of file transfer. A good example is the ability for Mac OS X to print any document as a PDF file (that is out of the box, construct a compliant PDF from the print dialog).

• Ability to make use of hardware/software solutions that are easy to use and very fast. Garageband and iMove are the current standards for these kinds of applications being used in pre-tertiary education. The latest versions in the right hands are capable of producing professional quality results. For many examples audio and video can be re-composited and down converted using a Mac for playback on the UMPC. A common task would be to extract short clips (usually less than 10 min) from an extended movie for embedding use such as in a slide presentation, and assessment material such as for embedding in a Filemaker Pro document set up for assessment. Filemaker Pro makes an excellent platform for constructing assessment tasks. Consider a "page" to be the same as a layout.

Sorry folks, we need to think outside the triangle if we are to seriously move away from paper. You just have to do it! Alternatively, the Mac can be used to build a library of audio/video material. These will become the future "short exercises" for students.

Tips

Firstly, if you cannot obtain a Mac build of the Open Source Software, then try to find software that will interoperate. Often this means read and write particular file types. .pdf is now a common interchange format because of its attributes of carrying font information and page layout information.Yes, folks the (possibly gutted font definition files are embedded!- and would it not be useful to extract them). Word .doc files are also both readable and writable by a Mac.

Secondly, try to obtain a feature set of software that is either directly compatible or interoperable. In a large number of cases, for example with the Open Source Software(OSS) loaded onto the UMPC it is possible to obtain Macintosh binary versions.

• Adobe Reader 9.2.0 - for reading .pdf files
• Audacity 1.3.9 - for reading and writing audio files. The quality of those files produced on a Mac are superior to what you would obtain from the UMPC.
• Freemind 0.8.1
• Adobe Photoshop product suite

Useful applications for interoperability but not available on the UMPC

Although versions are given, obviously you download the latest. In many cases they are now moving from 32-bit to 64-bit versions.

• Open Office Suite - will read and write many Microsoft Office file types
• Skim - can produce note annotated .pdf files readable on the UMPC. This has got to be very, very useful.
• FrameByFrame 1.0 - a stop motion video creation application that produces Quicktime Movies. It could not be easier to use. Again, very, very useful.
• Miro 2.5.3 - to access bitTorrent sites- the source of many video clips. A remarkable application.
• Stuffit Expander 14.0 - the free expander application. It is capable of expanding many compressed file types including those found on Windows platforms.
• Handbrake - 0.9.4 - a very fast transcoder with innumerable options. It now has a 64-bit version. ideal for down converting A/V files and re-sizing for UMPC display.

• iTunes is installed on both the UMPC and of course on standard Mac OS X installs.

• Install the SMART Product Suite using a DET licence. This will allow you to make very effective use of the IWBs.

Connections

There is some value in the "quick and dirty" approach to lashing together equipment for a limited purpose and limited time. For example I carry with me a very good quality 2 m VGA cable lashed to a 2 m USB cable using velcro ties. This is designed to give me connectivity to an IWB set up. However, I mostly use it for connection to a data projector- without the USB cable. I also carry a number of other items:

• short Ethernet cable - about 30 cm

• USB A to USB mini - for connection to video cameras and 2.5" HDDs

• A USB multi-card reader (for all those cards!)

• A Firewire 400 cable with a FW 400 to FW800 adapter (it does not convert the speed)

• A USB A to USB B cable

• micro-mini 4 port USB hub (Targus make one of the smallest)

• USB to 3.5 mm Audio In and Audio Out dongle (although it mimics the I/O port already on the laptop)

• 3.5 mm stereo ear buds
• mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter (to connect the Mac Laptop to VGA equipment), VGA is currently the default connector. I suspect that in the near future we will see HDMI being also used.

• a pair of TDK Tremor X-10 USB powered speakers. This has got to be the smallest USB powered solution I've seen. They clip together magnetically to protect the flat panel sound drivers when not in use. The 3.5 mm plugs to each speaker act as the stands. The USB to Audio converter/power driver is in the USB plug.

• a small video recorder - the aim is to easily capture work done by students - as it happens. In my case, in a science laboratory. The aim is to obtain "takes" of work without students being identified in the frame (mainly for the real reason that it is distracting- you don't want students focusing on the "who" but "what" and "how"). Many professionally produced videos may have people in them but if you look carefully, unless there is a "talking head", the people deliberately do not feature. Yes, and for that other reason as well! One of the best "real life" videos I have used was taken by a Year 12 Physics student without any previous experience of making videos. Not one person's face was shown, but we had natural dialog between myself and students discussing their efforts to construct self-starting electric motors. The video was all close-up shots of the motors operating, including a lot of hands. The "test" was for each motor to self start (you need an odd number of rotor poles) and operate unaided continuously for at least 30 seconds. It was edited on a Macintosh computer.

On the other hand there is some value in using equipment that has much of the functionality within it. Macintosh laptop computers are well suited to audio-visual presentations and engineering. The AV codecs built into Mac products are at least semi-professional- and can be easily upgraded to professional standard by making some judicious configuration choices- the hardware is professional standard. The ability to connect A/V dongles and very fast relatively sophisticated AV peripheral devices (using either USB 2.0 or FW 400 or FW 800) with the peripheral devices automatically being identified makes the hardware ideal for educational users.

For example, complementing the existing 3.5 mm I/O port, you can connect an Audio I/O USB 2.0 port dongle into a Mac laptop giving you an additional Audio Input/Output port. By just plugging in a second USB Audio I/O dongle you have 3 I/O ports. All the required software including mixing the two or three channels is built-in. This is Ideal for making high quality podcasts. If you intend to use this method, it would be useful to make up a simple cable harness so that the set-up can be made very quickly.

Beyond this simple arrangement, you would be looking to use low end studio equipment, and this can start to become seriously expensive.

It should be possible to connect a Mac Laptop and the UMPC to a 4-port Ethernet hub to exchange information. The are a number of possibilities from, direct connection to connection via servers. Using the Sharing Pane, the Mac can be configured to act as a share point for a large number of protocols. The most interesting are: File Sharing, Web Sharing, Bluetooth Sharing. Something to try but there would be considerable configuration required. It is possible to exchange files directly via Bluetooth but first requires the obligatory "pairing" which is a good thing. The transfer is best initiated from the Macintosh. It is possible to exchange files via SD Card/ USB Flash Memory.